US Attorney General talks police-community ties in Detroit: "We're here to help"

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch at a Detroit rally promoting police-community ties.

Sarah Cwiek
/ Michigan Radio

The U.S. Department of Justice is “ready to work” with Detroit and other cities to help ease tensions between police and many communities.

That was U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s message over the past two days in Detroit.

Lynch first spoke at a rally outside a Detroit police precinct for the National Night Out Tuesday. That annual event promotes improved police-community relations.

Lynch admits the country “has had some challenging times” with that lately, as high-profile violence has “frayed trust” between law enforcement and the communities they serve.

“But the ties that bind us -- neighborhood, family, community -- that’s what always prevails,” she said. “That’s what succeeds. And the Department of Justice is your partner. We’re here to work with you, and we’re here to learn from you.”

Lynch kicked off a series of national forums on police-community ties at Wayne State University Wednesday.

The goal is to “come with solutions that we can lift up,” she said.

The “recent tragedies over the last several weeks … have really not just struck a chord in so many people, but they have awakened a pain in so many people that really crosses all boundaries.”

Twenty police officers were killed in the line of duty in July, said Detroit Police Chief James Craig.

“We have got to talk to each other, we’ve got to work with each other. That’s the response,” said Craig.

Justice department officials cited Detroit as a city where police have made significant strides toward rebuilding community trust.

The department saw many reforms under more than 13 years of federal oversight, which officially ended just this year.

But people need to see more accountability for police wrongdoing to restore trust, argued Detroit NAACP President Rev. Wendell Anthony.

“One of the things that folk need to see is police being arrested and going to jail and doing time. That’s basic,” Anthony said.

“Police officers who do wrong things, need to go jail and need to do time. That’s accountability.”

Police interrogated 14-year-old Davontae Sanford, who says he was coerced into giving a false confession.

Former Detroit police commander James Tolbert was one of the cops who questioned Sanford. He testified in court that Sanford was able to draw a crime scene sketch for police of where the murders took place.

But later, Tolbert admitted to police that he actually drew most of the sketch.

Still, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy announced late Tuesday there's insufficient evidence to charge Tolbert with perjury. Her office says even if Tolbert changed his statements about evidence, it’s really hard to actually prove perjury, because you have to prove that somebody intentionally lied under oath.

Bill McGraw reports for Bridge, a Michigan Radio partner in the Detroit Journalism Cooperative.

The Black Lives Matter movement was peaking a year ago, when protesters took to the streets of Baltimore over the death of a black man in police custody. On the same day, an angry crowd gathered on Evergreen Road on Detroit’s west side.

The situation on Evergreen quickly grew tense. An agent from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement who was on a task force with Detroit police had shot and killed a 20-­year-old black Detroiter, Terrance Kellom, a parole absconder who was wanted for armed robbery.

“Huge crowd. We were surrounded,” Assistant Chief Steven Dolunt recalled in late March. “They were calling for the chief. I called him. I said, ‘You need to get here right away. Now.’’’

The chief of police is James Craig. The crowd knew him because in nearly three years at the top of the Detroit Police Department, he has become such a familiar figure on city streets and media outlets that some people, both friends and foes, call him “Hollywood.”

Craig’s style is low­-key and controlled, more Woodward Avenue than Sunset Strip, but he doesn’t mind the nickname. He says his visibility is part of a deliberate strategy to communicate with Detroiters.